A JUDGE has warned drivers of the stupidity of risking a prison sentence by paying a Snapchat scammer to dodge a speeding fine.

Judge Ahmed Nadim was sentencing a young woman of previous good character for two offences of intending to pervert the course of public justice.

Sanjidah Ahmed wanted to avoid the embarrassment after twice being clocked speeding in four months, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

Ahmed, 25, of Acres Street, Keighley, was first caught exceeding the limit on Bradford’s Toller Lane in March, 2020, and then on the city’s Westgate four months later.

Danielle Gilmour, prosecuting, said that when she received Notices of Intended Prosecution she put forward other names as the culprits.

The deceit led to a man working in Australia at the time to be prosecuted and convicted in his absence. In the second case a woman was nominated and never traced.

When Ahmed was arrested she told the police she had paid £300 to ‘resolve’ the first offence but couldn’t recall the second incident.

She pleaded guilty to two offences of intending to pervert the course of public justice, between March 19, 2020, and July 7, 2021, by providing false details in response to Notices of Intended Prosecution.

The court heard that two women with similar linked cases had received suspended jail sentences.

Adam Birkby, Ahmed’s barrister, said she had paid a man who advertised his services on Snapchat. She was immature and naïve and he had exploited her.

The risk that she had taken to avoid embarrassment far exceeded the minor punishment she would have received.

It was to Ahmed’s eternal shame that she had done it twice. It was wholly out of character and she was remorseful and ashamed. She worked in recruitment and was thought very highly of by her employer.

The very fact that she had faced imprisonment meant that she would not reoffend.

“It’s a salutary case for someone so young and with so much to lose,” Mr Birkby said.

Judge Nadim said it was ‘a terrible shame’ to see Ahmed seated in the dock at the crown court for such serious criminal behaviour. Such ‘stupid’ offending attacked the jus-tice system at its very heart. But she was only 25 and of previous good character. The offences were more than two years ago and she had stayed out of trouble since.

Ahmed was jailed for six months, suspended for 18 months, with 120 hours of unpaid work and 20 rehabilitation activity days.